julie

I really appreciate everyone's advice, stories, and ideas about my dd
bedtime. We have created a "soft-spot" on the living room floor for
her, that she can choose to lie down on if she is tired, and she can
request her milk when she wants it, not when we tell her it is time for
milk... so I think it is going ok. Although she is still up until
about 11 each night, there are no fights or crying, or arguing.
Although I am still nervous in this change of view. Did everyone feel
that way in the beginning?

From what I have read, either this will fall into an earlier bedtime,
or maybe this is just her routine, or time to do things.
With my older children, (now 17 and 18) I was a pretty controlling
parent, so this is very difficult for me. But I am beginning to see
the light.

Thanks again.

petra_norr

I abolished bedtimes too starting last Sunday night. The first night
ds (15mths) virtually took himself to bed - pointing up the stairs
etc and was out by 8o clock. the last few nights have been all over
the place... last night he was tired by 7.30 so i fed him downstairs
and he did fall asleep. as soon as i tried putting him into his bed
though he woke up and wouldn't go back off until just before midnight
when he fell asleep on dps arm. i think we will get there eventually,
where he will fall into his own rhythm, he has done with everything
else really. he just doesn't seem to like the bedroom (away from us?)
i did say afterwards that i should ve just let him downstairs with us
when he fell asleep the first time - he would've probably stayed
asleep. DP still isnt sure about the whole "letting him get away with
it" scenario but i will get him there yet... he still needs to
deschool a little too, but we've got a few years time!

--- In [email protected], "julie" <brihanna@...>
wrote:
>
> I really appreciate everyone's advice, stories, and ideas about my
dd
> bedtime. We have created a "soft-spot" on the living room floor
for
> her, that she can choose to lie down on if she is tired, and she
can
> request her milk when she wants it, not when we tell her it is time
for
> milk... so I think it is going ok. Although she is still up until
> about 11 each night, there are no fights or crying, or arguing.
> Although I am still nervous in this change of view. Did everyone
feel
> that way in the beginning?
>
> From what I have read, either this will fall into an earlier
bedtime,
> or maybe this is just her routine, or time to do things.
> With my older children, (now 17 and 18) I was a pretty
controlling
> parent, so this is very difficult for me. But I am beginning to
see
> the light.
>
> Thanks again.
>

rebecca de

--- On Tue, 4/29/08, julie <brihanna@...> wrote:
Did everyone feel

that way in the beginning?


Julie,
I'm just one more person saying yes I felt that way in the beginning of the bed time thing. I want to share something with you that may help. When I first relaxing completely about bedtime I still had to really re-train myself. There were times when I still decided it was bed time and forced the issue- especially with my 2 year old -- my thought was that it was 10 ish and I was tired so he must be. I also did the same with naps -- which I knew wasn't the consensual way of being but ..... until recently when I figured out the certain times I could get the 2 year old to just sit down for a couple minutes --- then he will just crash all by himself no fighting no crying etc. Also the last few months I have gotten back with my youngest childs dad and as we were first working our way back I had to explain to tom how I was handling bed time. Now before one of our major fights were over him wanted to enforce bedtime with the children -- and even then
I wanted to be more lacks about it. So amazingly within the last few weeks I have really noticed that there is no issue regarding bed time for any of us. Matter of fact within the last 2 weeks I will just go to bed and read or turn the lights off and the 2 year old will just come up and go to bed. One night while tom and I were up watching a movie ds actually walked in the bedroom and went to bed all by himself. whoooo hooo.

My oldest is pretty simple -- just put on his tv shows and off to sleep he is.


Another thing that has helped me is to just let go of the idea that kids should be to bed by this time.... My kids are more or less like me and we are late birds. DH and I have figured out that we can find our alone time around the kiddos... This took a lot of pressure of my brain when trying to please everyone. I like to sleep in when possible -- so the kids staying up a later they sleep in also. If I really wanted alone time I should make it for myself. Either by escaping when Tom gets home or getting up earlier.

So basically keep retraining your brain to relax and it will fall into a comfortable routine for all.





















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Debra Rossing

>Another thing that has helped me is to just let go of the idea that
kids should be to bed by this time
Another thing we've been letting go is that sleeping has to happen in a
bed in a bedroom. For some years (way back when), DS had a rough
bedtime, somewhere between 9 and 10 pm, when things were winding down,
we'd read stories, etc. Then when he was around 4 1/2 or 5, we decided
to just 'misplace' bedtime - no announcements or anything. One evening,
I was heading up to bed (*I'm* the one who most needs a 'bedtime' LOL)
and announced such to DH and DS "I'm heading to bed, I'm tired,
goodnight". DH decided to head up with me. DS said "I want to watch the
rest of <whatever it was>" I said "Okay, turn the TV off when you're
done", gave him a kiss on the head and headed up. 20-30 minutes later,
he popped upstairs to our room as usual to snuggle to sleep. Oftentimes,
once he was asleep, I'd 'sleepwalk' him back to his bed so I could have
space to stretch out (amazing how much of a king sized bed one 5 yr old
can take up LOL), not always, sometimes we'd end up waking up in a big
puppy pile. When we got a second TV (someone gave it to us when they
were moving), we put it in our room and we'd all snuggle and watch TV as
we fell asleep. Last year, we got a TV/DVD combo for DS' room (he's
about to turn 10) and sometimes, he'd watch TV in our room for a bit
then go to his room to continue watching (as I mentioned, I'm the one
who needs to get shut eye so our TV often goes off before DS is ready to
sleep). Over the last couple of months, he's taken to being up at odd
hours - sometimes staying up until 2 am then sleeping in; other times,
falling asleep around 10 then getting up around 4, etc. TVLand on our
cable system shows old Star Trek episodes at 6 so he'll often get up to
watch that. The last couple of nights, he's decided to stay downstairs
to watch TV late instead of going up to his room or our room. Sometimes
I go down to get ready for work in the morning and he's wide awake,
watching TV. Other times, he's curled up asleep on the couch (I got the
cutest picture yesterday morning of him curled up under a cotton throw
blanket with the dog curled up on the couch asleep at his feet) I'll
sometimes pop my head down around 11 (if I'm still awake) and if he's
already asleep, I'll throw a slightly warmer blanket over him (the throw
is nice but not very long or soft). The other day, when I got home from
work, he gave me a hug and said "Thanks for the blanket". [cross
reference this one with modeling kindness and showing appreciation to
one another] But, regardless of where he is, he sleeps when he's tired,
wakes when he's done sleeping. Sometimes he'll nap in the late
afternoon, sometimes he just falls asleep a little earlier at night.

If we have a set morning thing, we make sure that's known ahead of time
- we try to set as many appointments and such as possible that involved
him for late morning or early afternoon (10 am - 3 pm)

As he's closing in on 'double digit' age and folks start mentioning the
teenage years and 'rebellion' and all, I just kind of chuckle and say
"what in the world is there to rebel about?" He doesn't have bedtime,
homework, school time, limits on TV or videogames or food, and I can't
foresee us having a curfew (I never had one growing up either). DH and I
were joking about it one evening a while back and saying that we might
end up with Alex P. Keaton LOL

Deb


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Meredith

--- In [email protected], "petra_norr" <petra_norr@...>
wrote:
>> i did say afterwards that i should ve just let him downstairs with
us
> when he fell asleep the first time - he would've probably stayed
> asleep.

This is what we did with Ray for years. When he was little George and I
lived in a commune and the place where we slept was a little distance
from the "community house". So we just let Ray crash on a couch and
would carry him to bed when *we* were ready to go. He had the amazing
ability to sleep through all sorts of hoo-haa at the time.

---Meredith (Mo 6, Ray 14)

Meredith

--- In [email protected], "Debra Rossing"
<debra.rossing@...> wrote:
>> Another thing we've been letting go is that sleeping has to
happen in a
> bed in a bedroom.

We just had a massive Aha! moment in our house around this one. Mo
has been sleeping on a little makeshift bed next to my and George's
bed. I've been getting a little tired of having feet in my kidneys
(she turns 90 degrees when she sleeps!) after all these years, so
I'd been looking for ways to move her bed somewhere else. There's a
little room just off the master bedroom that we call "Mo's room" and
keep a lot of her stuff in, but she didn't want her bed moved that
far away from me.

Finally the Aha came... more of a Well Duh, actually. I have this
big closet - almost as big as "Mo's room" that's just arm's reach
from my side of the bed. Mo's bed had been packed into the space
between my bed and the closet and making it difficult to get into
the closet. Well Duh. We moved the closet bar into Mo's room - high
enough that she still has all her space, really - and her bed into
the closet. TADA! Now we All have more room! And she's close enough
to mommy to feel comfortable.

---Meredith (who is sleeping sooooo well these days!)